JAKARTA, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Jakarta-Bandung High-speed Railway (HSR), the first of its kind in Southeast Asia, carried a total of 220,227 passengers in 576 trips during a 12-day year-end holiday from Dec. 22 to Jan. 2, an official said Wednesday.

Eva Chairunisa, General Manager Corporate Secretary of PT Kereta Cepat Indonesia (KCIC), said in a press release that the number is 33 percent higher than that from early December till the start of the holiday season.

MOSCOW(AP) — Russia and Ukraine on Wednesday exchanged hundreds of prisoners of war under a deal sponsored by the United Arab Emirates.

Ukrainian authorities said that 230 Ukrainian prisoners of war returned home. Russia’s Defense Ministry said that 248 Russian servicemen have been freed from Ukrainian captivity. The ministry said that the deal was made possible thanks to mediatory efforts by the United Arab Emirates.

There was no immediate acknowledgment from the UAE, which has maintained close business ties to Moscow throughout Russia’s war on Ukraine

BEIRUT (AP) — The TV station of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group says top Hamas official Saleh Arouri was killed Tuesday in an explosion in a southern Beirut suburb.

Arouri, one of the founders of Hamas’ military wing, had headed the group’s presence in the West Bank. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had threatened to kill him even before the Hamas-Israel war began on Oct. 7.

Israeli officials declined to comment.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said the blast killed four people and was carried out by an Israeli drone.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The Republican-controlled Mississippi Legislature begins its annual session Tuesday, with all members being sworn in for a four-year term and the House electing new leaders after the previous speaker chose not to seek reelection.

Rep. Jason White of West secured promises of support from his Republican colleagues weeks ago to become the next House speaker. He will succeed Republican Philip Gunn of Clinton, who held the leadership post for the past 12 years.

WASHINGTON, Jan 2 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden's administration on Tuesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene after a federal appeals court temporarily blocked it from destroying razor wire fencing that Texas placed along its border with Mexico to deter illegal border crossings.

The administration asked the justices to halt a December ruling by the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that prohibited Border Patrol agents from cutting or moving the disputed fencing while litigation plays out.

DENVER (AP) — A man leaving the scene of a car wreck Tuesday shot his way into the Colorado Supreme Court building and inflicted “extensive damage” to the building before being arrested by police, authorities said, adding the incident seems unrelated to the court’s recent ruling banning former President Donald Trump from the ballot.

Washington (AP) —Over the past three years, the world’s oldest democracy has been tested in ways not seen in decades.

A sitting president tried to overturn an election and his supporters stormed the Capitol to stop the winner from taking power. Supporters of that attack launched a campaign against local election offices, chasing out veteran administrators and pushing conservative states to pass new laws making it harder to vote.

At the same time, the past three years proved that American democracy was resilient.

WASHINGTON, Jan 2 (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department on Tuesday slammed recent statements from Israeli ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir that advocated for the resettlement of Palestinians outside of Gaza, calling the rhetoric "inflammatory and irresponsible."

Finance Minister Smotrich, one of the senior figures in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing coalition, had called on Sunday for Palestinian residents of Gaza to leave the besieged enclave, making way for Israelis who could "make the desert bloom."

JERUSALEM, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Israel will appear before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague to contest South Africa's genocide accusations over the war with Hamas in Gaza, an Israeli government spokesman said on Tuesday.

South Africa asked the ICJ on Friday for an urgent order declaring that Israel was in breach of its obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention in its crackdown against Hamas.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — A man who died after crashing an SUV loaded with gas cans outside an upstate New York concert venue appeared to have been aiming at a pedestrian crossing, but investigators have found no evidence that the crash that killed two ride-hail passengers early on New Year’s Day was terror-related, police said Tuesday.

GAZA, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- The death toll of Palestinians has exceeded 22,000 after the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas conflict on Oct. 7, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said on Tuesday.

The ministry said in a press statement that the Israeli army killed 207 Palestinians and wounded 338 others in the Gaza Strip during the past 24 hours.

The new causalities bring the number of Palestinian deaths to 22,185 and injuries to 57,035 since Oct. 7, according to the statement.

WAJIMA, Japan (AP) — A series of powerful earthquakes that hit western Japan have left at least 55 people dead and damaged thousands of buildings, vehicles and boats. Officials warned Tuesday that more quakes could lie ahead.

Aftershocks continued to shake Ishikawa prefecture and nearby areas a day after a magnitude 7.6 temblor slammed the area.

Damage was so great that it could not immediately be assessed. Japanese media reports said tens of thousands of homes were destroyed.